I Have A Dream, A Song To Sing

Every Saturday, I will be sharing adventures from travels past.

The next few weeks will be adventures from my study abroad experience in Hydra, Greece.

These are the stories of how I discovered my calling as a traveling yoga teacher and the magic that is Greece.

I hope you experience as much magic reading about my adventures as I did living them!

A Little Backstory

I dreamed of going to Greece for the past three years. In 2014 I made my biggest goal Greece. The only way I would go is if I could study theatre and perform. I looked into three study abroad programs and was accepted into one. Acting to the Gods was the program. Acting to the Gods is an intensive drama course on the Greek island Hydra. Our play was the Greek tragedy Suppliant Women written by Euripides. The program accepted 12 people internationally, so I was very lucky to get in. When I was first accepted, I had completely forgotten that I had applied to the program, so I did not believe it for about five minutes until I did some research. Then I jumped for joy around my apartment and started crying tears of joy, because my dream of going to Greece was coming true! I called about every person in my contacts, because I could not hold the excitement in! To pay for this dream I got three jobs within a week. I was determined to make this dream come true. I want to share my dreams and adventures with the world so, I kept a daily journal so that I would not forget a single moment!

Day 1- Athens, Greece

My plane landed and I started squealing with joy so loudly that the old man sitting next to me started yelling at me in Greek. I had no idea what he said, but I didn’t care because I was in Greece! My lovely new friend Vi picked me up at the airport and had my name written on her IPad. I felt like a star. Instead of taking the metro, we took a bus so we could see everything on our way to the hotel. I checked in at the Hotel Attalos and my room was so cute! It was little with a twin bed and had a window that opened wide, so I had a beautiful view of Athens! There was also a rooftop garden that I could see the Acropolis from. Vi and I went to dinner later where I had my first official Greek Salad. All I can say is Feta is Beta in Greece and I am never going back to American Feta. No way! After dinner we went to a lovely play called Socrates Now. I bet you can guess who it was about. Anyway, it was right under the Acropolis, so the walk there was amazing! We walked through Plaka, which is a very touristy area that reminded me of New York with street performers and stores everywhere. We walked all these old streets with displayed ruins. It was absolutely amazing! I was excited to be there and of course for my first picture I had to do my High School Musical jump. After the play, I went back to my hotel and passed out for the night until I was awakened by the lovely mosquitoes that had attacked my face. I had to wear sunglasses for two days straight just so no one would see the damage. Even though I was extremely jet lagged and bit up, I was so thankful and still in shock that I was in Greece. I was so excited for the adventures coming my way!

Day 2- Athens and Hydra, Greece

Before leaving for Hydra, I explored Athens for a little while. I found kinder eggs, gelato, and an old church that shined in the sun. It was all so wonderful! I then had lunch and left for Hydra. Hydra is a gorgeous Greek Island with no transportation except donkeys, water taxis, and walking. A group of us from the intensive took a Dolphin to the island then a water taxi to Vlychos, which is the village in Hydra I stayed at. The moment I stepped foot onto the island I knew I would be having the adventure of a lifetime. We got off at a tiny port and rolled our suitcases around the taverna and up the hill to our villa. Corinna, our artistic director greeted us there. Corinna shared her beautiful home with us for accommodation. I felt like I was in Mamma Mia! I stayed in a room with three other girls, Camilla, Fay, and Lizzie. And that will be a whole other blog post, because the adventures the four of us had together cannot be summed up in one sentence! After unpacking, we had a four hour break until dinner. So it was beach time! We all went swimming at the main beach. All of the beaches are very rocky and the water is so clear, I could see everything! After the beach, Lizzie and I went and explored the next village over and then came back to explore our village. There were so many pink flowers all over the village walls and dusty roads. Those pink flowers truly brightened my day every single day! We walked down all these little streets to see what we would find! We discovered some beautiful, smaller hidden beaches. We found a couple churches and all the doors and windows of the homes on the island just amazed me! Each door had a different doorknocker. I just loved it! There were so many different shades of blue and purple! It was all so pretty!

Day 3- Hydra, Greece

Today we met our director and started workshops. They were incredibly educational! One of our assignments was to only use the space we had, movement, and our voices without words. We had about ten minutes to come up with a story. My group used our voices as sirens, screaming, and sobbing. Our assignment was based on laments and events happening in the world. It was so amazing how quickly we created everything. Everyone was so creative and all the stories were beautiful! Every evening at 8pm we had sunset time. We sat on the side of the mountain, behind the theatre and watched the sunset while listening to beautiful music. Watching that every evening changed me and I reflected so much about my life and who I am. Sitting on the side of a mountain watching the sun go down over the Peloponnese made me question so much. One of my questions is why are some places more beautiful than others?And whoever created this beautiful Earth thank you and why did you create it?I have many more questions, but I feel those were the most important to me at the moment.

So those were my first three days in Greece. I loved exploring and enjoying the little pleasures of life. The best part about Greeks is that they are in no rush. They live life moment to moment and I think that is the best way to live life.

Live your dreams! And live your life moment to moment!

If you’re interested in exploring the Greek Islands, check out my post:

Brytta

Founder

Brytta is a world traveling yoga teacher from NYC. Lover of glitter, SUP Yoga and climbing waterfalls. When she's not adventuring around the world and practicing yoga, she's writing about her adventures and coming up with new ways to take her yoga off the mat and into the world! When she's not doing any of that, she's outside studying constellations and making wishes on shooting stars. A big fan of discovering new music, her current favorite musicians to practice to are: Nahko and Medicine For The People, Trevor Halland CloZee.♥

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